Author: Dan Homan
Date: 14:17:59 02/17/99
Go up one level in this thread
On February 17, 1999 at 17:05:39, KarinsDad wrote: >All of these Crafty source discussions are interesting, however, they are moot. > >The copyright notice is quite clear; "any changes made to this program must also >be made public in the spirit that the original source is distributed" > >* All rights reserved. No part of this program may be reproduced in any * >* form or by any means, for any commercial (for profit/sale) reasons. This * >* program may be freely distributed, used, and modified, so long as such use * >* does not in any way result in the sale of all or any part of the source, * >* the executables, or other distributed materials that are a part of this * >* package. any changes made to this program must also be made public in * >* the spirit that the original source is distributed. * > >What this means, regardless of any spin put on it by others (including >discussions on how mankind builds upon the knowledge of other, etc.), is that if >you change the source code, you MUST make those change available to Robert. >Bottom line. This does not mean that you have to send those changes to Robert, >you just have to make those changes publicly available so that Robert can >acquire them if he so wishes. > >If you modify the source code and do not do this, then you are in copyright >violation. Not only are you doing something illegal, but you are also doing >something immoral. Wrong is wrong, no matter what spin you put on it (this is my >fundamentalist personality speaking Fernando). > >Let's take an example. Let's say that you have a special compiler which really >works well with the Pentium II cpu. You decide to compile the source code with >this compiler to see if Crafty runs faster compiled with it on your Pentium II >system as opposed to being compiled with VC++. You find out that vcinline.h >would execute faster if you made some assembly changes to it. You MUST make >those assembly changes publicly available. It DOES NOT MATTER if you only run >that version on your own personal Pentium II. If you change the source, you >must make those changes available. > >If you do not want to abide by the copyright requirements, then you should not >be modifying Crafty source code. It ISN'T yours to do with as you will. You did >not spend thousands of hours creating it and improving upon it. You can read it >to your hearts content. Using Crafty source to create your own program >(including most of the Crafty clones which have not sent their changes to >Robert) and not making the source available is illegal. It does not matter if >you plan on eventually replacing 100% of the Crafty source with 100% of your own >source or not. Once you make a change, you must make that change publicly >available. > >KarinsDad :| I agree with you, but your post has raised an interesting question in my mind.... What triggers the requirement to make the changes publicly available? If I download crafty, open main.c in an editor and type a few lines of nonsense, do I have to make these changes available to the public? If I don't, have I broken the law? This sounds like a silly example, and it is. But what triggers the requirement to make the change public? For the GNU license, it is any distribution of a modified program that requires you to make the source code (and your changes) available to interested parties. Is crafty the same in this regard? If so, is it ok to make whatever changes you like and keep them private... so long as you do not distribute the modified program? Does anyone know the answer to this? - Dan
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